Remove ads

A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

Reader mode
DragonParadox said:
I get where the sentiment is coming from but I must confess as an author I'm a little disappointed that I was not able to write them well enough to make you guys conflicted. Ah well all I can do is write them in a way that makes sense for their arcs in the time I can afford them, it would be unrealistic for very character to resonate with everyone (for good or ill).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We have barely interacted with them, and most of them have actually done us, or our House abstractly, some pretty grave ill, slight, or insult. Sometimes personally, rather than just as a political entity.

Robbing our Ancestral Home like brigands in the night does not inure you well to the blistering fury of a scion scorned.

And the Tyrells are too ambitious.

These characteristics are overwhelmingly at the forefront when they interact with us in any fashion, because the Tyrells just treat us like a Power Gumball machine and the Lannisters are warming themselves by the fire using our family's legacy as fuel.

How can I have mercy for these cretins? Even Lanna and Gerion thrust more power into Tywin's hands when they should be thrusting a sword into his chest.

They can surrender, take whatever too-generous deal we're already going to give them, or they can die screaming for all I care.
 
Last edited:
DragonParadox said:
Sort of, part of it is that she does not trust herself with that sort of power maintained by proxy because he has seen what she would do to keep it and partly she does not trust anyone else to actually protect her in that position.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If she really want to be queen of something, then if she manage to break the soft cap, she can grow as a PC until she reach level 20, and then go make herself a kingdom, that way she wont be ruling by proxy.

We will be happy to support her as a PC until she feel ready to leave our employ, we will of course try to convince her, that it's better to be one of our Vassals than an independent power, but if she insist on not having people higher in rank than her, then there's nothing preventing her, from going somewhere and making a kingdom, the multiverse if infinite, so while we will be taking over Planetos, there's never going to come a point, where there's nowhere she can make her own kingdom, without getting into conflict with us.

Being our Vassal is explicitly voluntary, sure if you opt out you have to leave our lands, but unless you committed crimes before leaving us, we wont be chasing you, if you decide you don't like working for us anymore.
 
DragonParadox said:
I get where the sentiment is coming from but I must confess as an author I'm a little disappointed that I was not able to write them well enough to make you guys conflicted. Ah well all I can do is write them in a way that makes sense for their arcs in the time I can afford them, it would be unrealistic for very character to resonate with everyone (for good or ill).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The problem isn't they're not well written, it's just that their positions mean we really can't sympathize with them. In the case of Lanna, it's fundamentally because for all that she may dislike Tywin's plans she still goes along with them, despite her having all the power to make him do what she wants. There's only so much a Sha'ir can complain about a freaking Aristocrat forcing her hand without us thinking her stupid.

House Tyrell is just plainly unlikable, blame canon.
 
Last edited:
DragonParadox said:
I get where the sentiment is coming from but I must confess as an author I'm a little disappointed that I was not able to write them well enough to make you guys conflicted. Ah well all I can do is write them in a way that makes sense for their arcs in the time I can afford them, it would be unrealistic for very character to resonate with everyone (for good or ill).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm not conflicted, but in the other direction, I explicitly want to recruit them, though I'm okay with killing them if recruitment fail.
 
Crake said:
We have barely interacted with them, and most of them have actually done us, or our House abstractly, some pretty grave ill, slight, or insult. Sometimes personally, rather than just as a political entity.

Robbing our Ancestral Home like brigands in the night does not inure you well to the blistering fury of a scion scorned.

And the Tyrells are too ambitious.

These characteristics are overwhelmingly at the forefront when they interact with us in any fashion, because the Tyrells just treat us like a Power Gumball machine and the Lannisters are warming themselves by the fire using our family's legacy as fuel.

How can I have mercy for these cretins? Even Lanna and Gerion thrust more power into Tywin's hands when they should be thrusting a sword into his chest.

They can surrender, take whatever too-generous deal we're already going to give them, or they can die screaming for all I care.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Fair enough, it's worth nothing that I'm not trying to generate sympathy as a writer (that would be a sort of soft railroading), just interest. The above reaction is perfectly reasonable, though I do also enjoy it when you guys try to get into the heads of characters in general (wether they are antagonists or not).
 
I still want to try and recruit Lanna.
Mostly because I don't see Tywin as an actual foe, more like a minor obstacle.
If she were supporting the Bloodstone Emperor or Tiamat I would agree to just kill her, but right now the Lannisters are no serious threat, so supporting them is no serious crime.

Danelle on the other hand has convinced me in our last meeting that we'll propably have to kill her, so we should get it over with.
 
Oh man I wanna say that I definitely like the Margery and Greystone interludes and will be sad when the probably inevitable conflict happens. I'd definitely willing to work with people to find some sort of compromise.
 
At the end of the day, our mere existence guarantees that we will erode whatever base of power our enemies try to force from our hands as a "compromise".

The only thing that will actually give them what they want from us (to win), is for us to agree to bind our hands behind our back and limit ourselves to the point of informal servitude.

Curb their ambitions or die within accordance to their virtues. Those are basically their options.
 
@DragonParadox Really we place all of our potential foes or even just people with non-aligning ambitions in unfortunate position. One of the reasons I expect conflict to be inevitable with most of them is that the ultimate vision we have for the future guarantees that we either A) Erode the legitimacy for people with royal ambitions just by existing, guaranteeing a future of always watching their backs for daggers and poison even if we completely ignored their existence and stolen birthrights.

B) Our acquiring of power and solidifying authority places potential theocratic power in jeopardy since you will have many people interested in more than a life lived in virtue for Gods utterly incapable of offering them protection, with servants who could having their hands tied because they repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot or idiotically take actions that end in pathetic failure because they trusted too much in Gods to save them.

C) We just ironically have something that they want and their two options to get it is to either join us, or fight us, with the unfortunate circumstance of being just too arrogant to compromise along lines agreeable to both parties that at least some bloodshed is inevitable.

It's just looking at all that we do for the world, and the perspectives of these people who view us as nothing more than an obstacle, that makes me greatly unsympathetic towards their woes and plights as individual characters with pathos and such that I might feel for even say, Stannis, who was our enemy, yet held my respect from the start because I knew he was worthy of it. A man sent to kill or capture us twice where we had done him no ill, but he was only following his duty to his King, one wholly undeserving of it.
 
Last edited:
Crake said:
At the end of the day, our mere existence guarantees that we will erode whatever base of power our enemies try to force from our hands as a "compromise".

The only thing that will actually give them what they want from us (to win), is for us to agree to bind our hands behind our back and limit ourselves to the point of informal servitude.

Curb their ambitions or die within accordance to their virtues. Those are basically their options.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
They always have the third option of going somewhere else, if Lanna want to rule an independent nation, then there's a whole multiverse she can build one in.
One Autumn Leaf said:
I agree with this. I can't bring myself to tolerate her, much less like her. Her moralizing and self-deception pisses me off.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I like her, she's going to be a challenge to get along with, but I actually see her as a possible way for us to avoid war with the Seven.
 
tarrangar said:
They always have the third option of going somewhere else, if Lanna want to rule an independent nation, then there's a whole multiverse she can build one in.

I like her, she's going to be a challenge to get along with, but I actually see her as a possible way for us to avoid war with the Seven.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Most people do not want to live their lives as exiles, even rich exiles.
 
When it comes down to it, Danelle is capable of compromising once we take control of Westeros. Capable, but not guaranteed. I don't want to plan her death yet, because the possibility exists that she might be useful in the coming days.

Lucan, on the other hand, is living on borrowed time.

Lanna might need to die, but probably not. I think we should try to arrange communication between us and her soon. I don't think it will be difficult to turn her to our cause. Tywin has not done much to endear her to his continued existence.
 
Last edited:
Vote closed
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Aug 23, 2019 at 3:23 PM, finished with 77 posts and 10 votes.
Click to expand...
 
tarrangar said:
They always have the third option of going somewhere else, if Lanna want to rule an independent nation, then there's a whole multiverse she can build one in.

I like her, she's going to be a challenge to get along with, but I actually see her as a possible way for us to avoid war with the Seven.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Assuming thats something to be avoided.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top